Sick days costing UK business nearly £29 billion a year, study reports

Despite taking fewer days off sick than in previous years, UK workers still require four times more time off than their counterparts from other countries, which is costing UK business nearly £29 billion a year, research carried out by consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has revealed.

According to a media news report on this topic, the research study found that UK workers take average 9.1 days off from their jobs each year because of sickness, which is nearly double the amount workers in the US take (4.9 days of sickness a year), four times more than their counterparts in Asia-Pacific (2.2 days) and higher than Western Europe (7.3 days).

Hence, the associated cost of staff sickness had also risen, now accounting for £28.8 billion of the UK's overall £31.1 billion absence bill.

The study also revealed that technology companies had the lowest level of sick days of any sector at an average of 3.4 days, which was about three times lower than public-sector workers (11.1 days), with retail and leisure and engineering and manufacturing workers averaging nine and 8.7 days respectively.

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Each employee can be allocated different entitlements for absence such as annual leave or allowed sickness. As absence is booked and taken, the remainder available for each entitlement is updated. Entitlement formulae are used to calculate more complex entitlements calculated on a rising scale based upon length of service.

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